Sin is A White Dress
by wonderincomplexity
Summary: Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue. Severus Snape, James Potter, a heart and a glass of tears. SS/LE
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing not even myself. J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_"There's nothing I can do to make you want me more than them is there?" A swift glance to the cluster of Slytherins on the left, bent together in conversation. A whisper, an inch more than a thought, an inch more dangerous. _

_"Lily, I do. I just...I just—_I can't."

The tears were rising in her eyes and that ship of normalcy was sinking inside of her, had been sinking since he clambered in ten minutes ago, face flushed from running, from panic.

She turned away from him, walked back to the mirror of the vanity adjusting her earring, first the left then the right, barely listening as he blew out words between breaths.

"Lily, I just wanted to-when I heard about-I had to-You just...Lily, _you can't_," he finished in one final huff, his chest still rising and falling rapidly.

She snatched her eyes away from her reflection, lowered her gaze to the lipstick and the hairbrush, to the mother of pearl comb, to the lace veil still resting silently in its box.

"I loved you so much, Sev," she said, her idle fingers sliding over the bristles of the brush. "I loved you so much," she repeated the tears now climbing down her cheeks, descending like train tracks running through her make up, settling in the corners of her lips, rolling into her mouth, carrying memories and secrets in their compartments, sins that should never be spoken. "And you still didn't pick me."

"Please," he said. _"_Lily, _please." _

She turned back to him, her eyes searching his face like flashlights searching the darkness for what had been lost.

"You were everything to me, you have to know that," he said, his breath back to normal, his gaze falling to an empty spot on the ground. "You still are."

A whispered confession he hoped only the blank floorboard heard.

He knew how dangerous the present tense was. The past tense was safer. It stated that something that once was had ended, that a boundary line had been drawn beyond which that something no longer existed.

He loved her.

Yes, once upon a time. In another life, where things were simpler. Where pureblood, half-blood, mud-muggleborn did not matter. Where there was no school, no bullies, no pranks. Just summer suns and drowsy trees and grass as warm as blankets.

The future tense was safer still. Use of it meant the birth of a promise that may or may not be kept. They were not broken promises but empty ones that time blew around like leaves. Who could say for sure if they all landed where he said they would?

He will love her.

Yes, in death perhaps. If they meet again. If they both go on. But maybe they won't.

She steps closer, _closer than she should_, the folds of her dress wash over his shoes and she brings her hands up to his face, her fingertips graze the line of his jaw.

The present tense is dangerous because it is mid-action, a beating heart that has not stopped beating yet, that does not hinge on a fragile possibility of beating again.

She presses her lips against his.

He loves her.


	2. Chapter 2

This is on account of my loving you forever.

Disclaimer: I own nothing not even the pen I used to write this story. J.K. Rowling owns everything.

I saw lilies everywhere even before I met you.

Isn't there truth in that?

The light on the back of your head, a neck, a wrist that looked like yours? Isn't that true?

Or is it that I see you after you are gone?

Chase a woman 3 blocks because the curve of her shoulder reminded me so much of yours only to find that her nose didn't cast the right line in the sun.

Is that my life now?

I have questions that you are no longer responsible for. And what would it matter if they did have answers? I searched your body for them. Your ribs, your spine, your knees and found no slip of paper, no posters or billboards that told me that I was wrong so I'll keep on loving you like I'm right.

Didn't you say that to me without saying? Isn't that why you sealed your silent vows with your lips? Isn't that what you meant when you unfolded it so carefully from your skirts and laid it between us? Always?

Or did you panic when you saw the tiny pillow so empty, carrying not all that you promised to give? Did you glance around to see if anyone else noticed as you slid only a ring into his hands and nothing else?

A heart is a heart is a heart but it is not a ring.

WIll you come asking about it? Posting signs with a please return to address?

_Have you seen it, Sev? It's gone missing and I need it back before he notices that it's gone. _

I cannot help you; I heard it beating inside my chest and I do not know how to get it out. So strange to think that the whole human body recreates itself every six months and yet I cannot shed it like skin.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything even my hands.

In the afternoon, he asked her to leave with him.

"You know I can't, Sev," she said snapping up her shirt and skirt.

"But why?" he pleaded to her back as she walked towards the bathroom, "I thought that we could-you said that you wanted to..."

"I do, Sev. _I do_." she said moving back into the room, reaching for his hand.

"So then why?"

"I don't know, Sev. He's sweet to me, he makes me laugh," a smile ghosted around her mouth. He jerked his hand away. "He makes me feel safe, Sev," she whispered the smile falling from her face, sadness rising in her eyes. "Life is easier."

"There's no harm in that, right? I mean, I know I have to be careful. Given the state of things everyone has to be careful but especially muggleborns. And you know that it's dangerous out there and not just for me either. But for Mum and Dad and Tuney as well. I can't risk it. I can't risk _them_."

_I hate this war. _She felt the sentence in her mouth but clenched her teeth to hold it back at the sight of his face. His eyes were darker than normal but churning, his brows were furrowed and a vertical line was sliced between them. He was pacing back and forth, walking through thoughts and plans with his hands shoved in his pockets.

She had to fight. Dumbledore had told them that they would face dark and difficult times when they left Hogwarts and now they were here. This war could blow out the windows of the house she spent 17 years in, send the glass ripping through her room where her childhood sat and collapse all of the memories into rubble. It could tear up the trees and bushes at The Spot, _their _spot.

He stopped pacing, a thought finally rising and halted the silence. "I could keep you safe," he said. "I could—"

"Sev, please listen to me," she said, grabbing his hand with both of hers, "I am not asking you to do that. I can't risk you either. If they knew... They'll hurt you if they find out about us...Please, Sev."

His eyes rose to hers for a few seconds until he nodded slightly. Silence dropped between them again and he pulled his hand away once again and her hands fell to her sides.

"I should go," her voice thin and soft as if wound in spider's silk but it dropped to the floor like a brick. He edged back to the bed, his head turned away from hers and nodded once to show that he had heard.

She moved towards the door and fastened her cloak before looking back over her shoulder at him. "Bye, Sev."

Author's Note:

I'm aimless. You're aimless. This story has no rhyme or reason. I started writing it, I think, from grief. I don't have a plot. I don't have anything planned. I don't know where any of this is even going. But these scenes call me in the middle of the night and won't stop calling until I write down what I see. I realize that the previous sentence makes me sound like a crazy person (the scenes are rather relentless honestly). It is crazy but I call it fiction. I confess that these few scenes have comforted me and eased me majorly out of my sadness. Thank you for reading. I hope that it made you feel something, anything, even nausea or boredom or repulsion. All news is good news.


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